The Early Dinner

Now that Rafa has started the night shift at the hospital, we need to change our eating schedule slightly. Since it was the weekend, making an early dinner was no problemo!

I reintroduced a fabulous recipe that we couldn't get enough of a few months back -- Spanish Pork. It is a Delicious recipe, but I have omitted some things and changed others, so now it's an Ilana recipe - ta da!

Spanish Pork
serves 2

1 tbs mustard
1 garlic clove, minced
8 pitted green olives, sliced
1 tbs chopped flat-leaf parsley
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 1/2 tbs olive oil
3-4 small pieces of boneless pork chops

To make sauce, whisk together mustard, garlic, olives, parsley, zest, juice, 1 tbs olive oil, pepper to taste and 2 tbs warm water.
Heat remaining oil in an ovenproof frypan over high heat and cook pork, turning, until golden and cooked through on both sides.
Drizzle pork with sauce liberally.

I am not sure how Spanish the above recipe is, though, but I thought I'd pair it with something definitely Spanish -- pan con tomate. I think traditionally the tomatoes are supposed to be cold, but since I was basing this on a Tessa Kiros recipe, I thought I'd leave them hot, and the 'pan' of choice would my fabulous Minimalist Loaf, of course. The combo of the pork with the pan was delicious! Here's a rundown of how I made a variation of Tessa's Sauteed Tomatoes with Garlic and Rosemary.

Pan con Tomate

10 ripe grape tomatoes
1 rosemary sprig
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
sea salt, to taste

Heat a skillet with the olive oil and the garlic and rosemary.
Meanwhile, cut the grape tomatoes in half. Add the tomatoes to the hot pan and sauteé for 10 minutes or so until soft and warmed through. Crush the tomatoes slightly with a spoon so that it releases its juices into the olive oil.

Spoon the tomatoes and sauce over chunky pieces of good quality bread.